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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Wake Up Women! We need more of you up there.

Just when we thought women are now on par with men competing in the upper league when it comes to career, in comes a less pleasant news.

Yes, it seems the number of women in top posts is falling. And this news came from none other than our Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who said women were under-represented at the decision-making levels of public-listed companies.

“The percentage of women who are members of boards of directors declined from 9.9% in 2004 to 6.1% in 2008,” he said in his keynote address at the Women’s Summit 2009 yesterday, according to The Star newspaper..

He said that women only held 12% of top positions in government-linked companies.

The report also quoted him as saying that it was important for women to continue to play a role in the country’s socio-economic development.

“The cost of women’s exclusion is too high for us to bear. Gender justice and women em powerment are not only essential to our economic development but also a great leap forward in nation building,” he said.